The Motorcycle Portraits: Ashley Myhre

The Motorcycle Portraits is a project by photographer/filmmaker David Goldman, who travels the world making documentaries, and takes time out to interview interesting people in the motorcycle scene, wherever he might be.  The result is a single exemplary photo, a geolocation of his subject, and a transcribed interview.  The audio of his interviews can be found on The Motorcycle Portraits website.

The following Motorcycle Portraits session is with Ashley Myhre, Creative Director at Mosko Moto, a motorcycle gear brand designed for the needs ADV and off-road riders that sells only direct to consumer.  You can follow Ashley’s Instagram feed of her global riding adventures and road testing of Mosko Moto gear.  David Goldman caught up with her busy travel schedule for an interview and portrait:

Tell us about yourself

“Yeah, what’s up? I’m Ashley Lauren Myhre. I’m 29 years old and we’re here in White Salmon in Washington and Mosko Moto headquarters. I’m the Brand / Creative Director at Mosko Moto.”

How did you first get interested in motorcycles:

“I had a pretty awesome introduction to motorcycling. I was  five years old. My grandparents has a big plot of land near Yosemite National Park in California, about 80 acres.  I was the oldest of 10 grandchildren at the time, not all 10 were born yet, but I’m the oldest on that side.  My second closest cousin to me is Jared, and his parents had just bought us a little 50cc Honda. And yeah, at about five years old, this was just like the most insane gift that we could have been given, and to have these 80 acres with quad trails all over. Riding the bike out there opened up this whole world of exploration for me at a really young age, that I had no idea even existed. So that was my first experience with two wheels.”

Tell me a story that could not have happened without motorcycles in your life:

“Oh man – what motorcycles have given me. I always knew that I wanted to travel the world, to experience different parts of the world in different cultures, and meet people all over the place. But I had no idea that motorcycles would allow me…is this real or just playing around? When I did meet people, instead of me just visiting them, they would be equally as interested in me because of the motorcycle. That’s the biggest gift that motorcycles have given me; wherever I go, whatever I’m doing, people tend to have something to talk about with me as well. I’m not just visiting them, but now we have something to come together on.”

What do motorcycles mean to you:

“Motorcycling to me is  the ultimate escape.  That’s so obvious, right?  You get on two wheels and you’re scooting away, but I mean when I say escape, I mean just the same way that an artist opens up their sketchbook and begin to paint or draw, when I get on a bike it’s that for me.  Everything else in the world disappears. It is the ultimate form of expression, the ultimate form of creativity. All of my best ideas come when I create that space in my mind on the bike.

Yeah, so the motorcycle to me is just the absolute ultimate form of freedom and expression, and traveling the world on two wheels that way just opens up so many doors. And I want to touch on being a woman: when I’m traveling all over the world, and I pull my motorcycle helmet off, and people realize that I’m a woman, their astonishment almost catches me by surprise. I don’t even understand why they would believe that as a woman, I wouldn’t be doing these things. And so if I can change the belief that you have to be extraordinary to be a woman riding the world, if I can make any little girl think that  she can do it too, that is huge to me. For example, when I was in Ethiopia, you don’t see any women riding motorcycles. You hardly see any women out in public unless they’re working in Ethiopia. And the smiles that came across the faces of the women who saw me doing what I was doing in their country, I knew how much it could empowering them to believe that they could do whatever they wanted to do. So that’s huge. and the motorcycle is my ultimate form of transportation, and the only way that I will travel the world.”

Explore other fascinating people in our Motorcycle Portraits series here.